Anomy
by Danielle Anderson
Summary: After all his dreams are shattered, Raito finds a new purpose in the unlikeliest of places. Raito L


Title: Anomy  
Author: Danielle Anderson

Rating: T  
Warnings: AU, past character death

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the lyrics

Summary: After all his dreams are shattered, Raito finds a new purpose in the unlikeliest of places.

Anomy: The absence or diminution of standards or values, and an associated feeling of alienation and purposelessness

I sing to life and to its tragic beauty  
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me  
The rise and the fall; I've lived through it all.  
The Corrs & Josh Groban, "Canto Alla Vita"

In the old days, Raito used to believe in the most fantastic things. He believed that he could touch the sky if he tried hard enough, cross the seven seas in search of much-prized treasure, achieve any goal that he wanted to. He saw dreams even when his eyes were open, of a golden world where he was king, ruling with a kind but firm scepter. And along the way, he saw so many signs that foretold his victory over those who opposed and wished to see him defeated but he was confident that he would strike them down with a pen, for a pen is mightier than a sword.

However, there was one thing Raito Yagami did not see coming and that was the fragility of life, especially when it looks at you straight in the eye while you remain frozen, your feet glued to the ground.

(So your head is finally out of the clouds and you've come crashing back to earth, facing harsh reality.)

Harsh reality is standing on the door of a subway on a rainy day in Tokyo.

Raito looks before he leaps, reluctantly releasing the handle of the door as though it were his only grasp on reality, and takes a deep breath. His foot falls silently over the concrete, the hard surface pushing against the soft soles of his feet and he thinks of Icarus flying too high, too close to the sun, only to crash into the waves below.

The weather is cold today; that much is obvious from the way he sees from the corner of his eyes people hurrying past him, drawing their coats around them. But he himself feels nothing. He suspects that this must be due to his own coat – long, dull brown – that Misa has urged him to wear that morning before he went out aimlessly like an arrow with nowhere to land. A year ago, he would have been bustling with energy, brimming with purpose, wondering how to make his next move. Wasn't it through this path that he once walked with Naomi Misora?

No – that was on a whole different side of Tokyo – his mind is playing tricks on him. But then again, he hardly notices these days where he is going, sort of like a blind man.

He makes his way quietly through the crowd, not reacting at all when other commuters push past him. Their hurry is understandable; it is five in the afternoon on a Friday and especially due to the gray skies and occasional drizzle, everyone is in a hurry to get home, like birds roosting after a long day.

(How are Mom and Dad? Is his father home yet? He remembers that his father used to make an effort to come early on Friday. He remembers that his mother used to cook a special supper then, steamed rice and vegetables, broiled shrimp, and Sayu would rush down the stairs, dark hair streaming like a scarf behind her, brown eyes enthusiastic and – )

_Sudden darkness. Flashes of light, blue in black. A child crying, a woman's voice screaming. His heart is racing in his chest as he rushes headlong through the pitch black, hand outstretched; he hears the sound of his own voice but he has no idea what he's saying. He keeps going, going, following the voice, the blind leading the blind._

"Wait!"

And as suddenly as it began, it is over. The darkness has lifted and Raito finds himself standing once again, in Tokyo on a rainy day, amidst people pushing past him on their way home.  


* * *

  
This is home. A small apartment in Minato that Misa pays the rent for. Raito thinks that this must be a piece of property that she inherited from her parents but she doesn't say much about it and he can't bother to ask. It is there and he comes back to it everyday and that is enough.

It's simply furnished with a low coffee table in the center, orbited by a brown leather couch that Raito spent many an afternoon lying, drowning in past musings about when the laughter came to an end. The afternoon is already dusky but one thing about Misa's apartment is that it is always nocturnal, even on sunny days, as if to reflect the model's Gothic Lolita tastes. The darkness seems to be illuminated here somehow, perhaps because the dying sunlight is cracking through the shutters, which he prefers drawn.

(Maybe this is his chance to catch up on one of many odd teenage phases that one goes through because he used to be so mature and responsible.)

Raito is sitting on the leather couch, already worn out from his frequent uses, and he is sipping a cup of coffee, pretending to himself on some level that it is the old days when he is living in the old house with his family still whole. Ryuk is standing behind him, cackling like a witch whenever he tries to have a normal conversation with his father.

_If anything happens to you, Dad, I swear I'm going to make Kira pay._

Haha. Come to think of it, Raito knows now why the spirit used to laugh.

"Oh, Raito," Misa pokes her blond head in, speaking in her bubbly voice, golden pigtails streaming down her shoulders. "You're back."

_You're back,_ she says as though she has been expecting him – of course she has been expecting him, he isn't going to go and drown himself in Arakawa like some weakling, because defeated princes do not do cowardly things like that. No, instead they prefer to keep to themselves in dark rooms, the proverbial princess in the proverbial tower, waiting for a dream to find them again.

"Hey, Misa," he gives her a small smile. It comes from him like an automatic reaction, superficial and mechanical like so many smiles that he has smiled before.

Misa looks down at him, wearing her cheerful, bouncy expression, heart full of energy and optimism that is hard to kill even in the face of bleak despair. It is an expression that he has come to expect and trust, because when your world is falling apart in minute shards, the only thing you can do is hold on to everything that is familiar. Her eyes are bright blue like orbs in the dark and for a moment, he imagines them as twin blue planets in the vast emptiness known as space. The solar system. The galaxy.

"Where did you go?" she shuts the door behind her and takes off her black platform heel shoes. She has always been shorter than him (most women are) but these shoes make her reach up to his shoulders, providing him with mild amusement.

"Nowhere special," Raito shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee. It tastes like water in his mouth but it doesn't bother him – he is used to tasting nothing these days, no matter how much seasoning is used.

"Did you eat?" she turns to him again with kind concern and for a moment, he feels guilty. He has lost six kilos in the last months (maybe more since he can't really bother to check his weight) but what can he do if hunger has abandoned him like a mother abandoning her child?

"I ate," he simply lies, as he has done before, only this time he feels guilty.

She narrows her eyes at him. Having lived with him for months, she has become more able to read his facial and body language, which makes him that he really isn't a good actor as he thought he was.

(Or maybe, that was just his old self, gone with the burnt pages of a notebook.)

"You didn't eat!" she says accusingly, her tone sharp and shrill. He might've flinched under different circumstances but right now, he doesn't have the energy. Right now, he just wants to shut out the world, wrap himself in a blanket and go to sleep.

"Coffee and tea are good enough. I'm even using milk and sugar. I don't think it's entirely impossible to survive on that."

"It's not _healthy_," insists the princess who stays away from sweet things to watch her weight. "You have to eat real food, Raito. It doesn't have to be much. And you can't go on living like this."

_Yes, I can. Just watch me._

"I'll have dinner," he brushes her off, though the words and the gesture with which they are spoken do not seem as smooth as they once were. "Rice, fish, all that."

"Well, you better eat before I leave," she huffs as she tugs off her black bolero jacket (how can she stand to dress in this childish fashion?). "I'm going to go out with Teru in a bit."

"All right."

She pauses and looks at him before entering her own room, as if to see whether he is jealous. He isn't. He knows that she has been seeing Teru Mikami, a senior law student from his university, for a couple of weeks now. Raito has met Teru on an occasion or two. He is a good man, an avid Kira supporter, wondering curiously where the vigilante reformer has disappeared. In another lifetime, Raito would have been pleased to have such a loyal supporter, but now he wishes that he could apologize and say that he was wrong. He knows – and Misa knows – that he can never be to her what she wants him to be. He doesn't doubt that deep down inside, she loves him still, but everybody has to move on at one point or the other.

For a moment, he sees her as she is – a petite blonde, upcoming talent Misa Amane, a yellow canary in a gilded cage, a sympathetic nurse patiently taking care of an invalid. She was in his room one year ago, in a short black dress with spaghetti straps and long, lace gloves, begging him to love her. But he can no more love her than he can sprout wings and take to the sky. She is Misa Amane, young (just two or three years older than him), patient (though she can be pushy sometimes) and caring. He feels like a leech to take advantage of her kindness like this, just like he used to take advantage of her love, and he considers getting his own apartment. If he could get himself to find a job. Or move back home.

"When are you going out?" he asks as she steps into the kitchen.

"Seven-thirty," she calls, "but Teru says he might be a little late."

Hmm. Though Raito left school a few months ago, he knows that in September, all law students have to start getting their final dissertation ready. He himself might have majored in law, at the rate he was going, he could've been the best law student his university ever saw, thrilled all the professors with his ideologies and theories, facilitating his path to becoming a king from a prince.

Somewhere in the distance, he hears the loud clatter of a crown crashing to the floor.

"Raito…are you listening to me?"

The truth of the matter is, he hears even if he doesn't want to. His ears are always open and even though he can still zone out almost successfully, there's still that hum of a feminine chattering that reminds him where and with whom he is, standing as a formidable iron barrier between him and Lethe.

"I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

She sighs like an exasperated mother who has to deal with an exceptionally difficult son. He is reminded of his own mother in the kitchen, asking him, when he has been studying hard all day long, what he wants to have for dinner.

"What do you want to have for dinner?" she asks.

He smiles darkly to himself. It must be true that men always look for women that remind them of their mothers.

"I will eat whatever you cook." He isn't in the mood to be picky these days. Not that he was ever picky about his food. No, he used to be picky about his clothes. He would always have to wear smart shirts and pants, have his hair in place, or in an attractive disarray, even though he didn't care who was attracted to him. Nowadays, he just grabs whatever he finds at hand (and all his voguish colors like blue, green, _pink_ were gone, to be replaced by drab shades of brown and gray, as though he were in perpetual mourning). He is lucky if he has showered, but hygiene is one comfort that he genuinely tries to maintain. It is the memory of a former life when things were clearer and easier and he was not half as jaded as he is now.

She rolls her eyes prettily, like a wife whose husband has flattered her (_oh, such things you say, my love!_) and then starts taking out the pots and pans.  


* * *

  
_Hustle bustle, hustle bustle, hustle bustle._

It is nine in the evening. Misa left with Teru an hour and fifteen minutes ago and Raito decided that the best way to pass his time would be to go and hang out in a coffee shop seven blocks away. He walked. He didn't have enough money for a taxi (he tries to spend wisely whatever money he has left and he refuses to accept any from his parents. He doesn't doubt that they would try to force yen banknotes down his throat. If they could find him.).

In this dimly lit café in the street corner (is this a respectable neighborhood? Could the only son – the only child – of Police Chief Soichiro Yagami afford to be seen in a place where hoodlums and drug dealers carry out their shady dealings in the deceptive light of a yellow light that he has never quite grown to adjust to – he prefers tube lights, they make reading easier – and where tables ought to cleaner?)

He finds that he doesn't care because this place serves the best coffee on the east side of Tokyo.

He is trying to lose himself. No, that's not quite it. Rather, he is trying to keep hold of his sanity by trying to forget, keeping his mind off things that no longer matter. _Bygones, bygones,_ Sayu would say whenever he got mad at her for touching his stuff without his permission (the sticky thumbprint on his favorite blue pencil case was hers, as was the crack in GI Joe – why did a Japanese kid own such a symbol of American pride? - that pissed him off for days). How trivial those things seem now in light of recent revelations that have done next to nothing to improve his life.

He no longer believes that he is special. He has been through far too much to entertain such naïve notions that he can make a difference and change the world. Better that he be left like a bird with its wings cut off than unleash terror in the guise of peace on the world.

Raito finds his favorite corner in the coffee, hidden by little plants in little earth-colored pots (were the green leaves drying up? How depressing.) and smells the scent.

It is beautiful. His stomach is full (well, as full as it can get with his mood) from the meal Misa whipped up for him and it wouldn't nearly be complete without a delicious cup of coffee. Or just coffee.

He would have loved to rest here with his cup and watch the world go by, too tired to take part in any of the activities that keep people busy, the short-term goals, the mundane pursuits (two students behind him are talking about which question would be most like to come in tomorrow's economics exam), and he wonders, _What is the point of it all when we all leave this behind and turn to dust when our time is up?_

In his head, Ryuk laughs and remarks that he has such morbid thoughts these days, but Raito can't help it. The world – his whole life – has transformed into shades of gray, black, brown, white, like a dying elm tree in the middle of an enchanted forest. "Someday my prince will come" is ironically playing on the jukebox and Raito muses with bitterness that by now, Sleeping Beauty must have died of waiting.

Can you give me a sip of your coffee, onii-chan?

He stills and closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. He reminds himself why he's come here. To forget, not to remember. There's plenty of time to remember later on. For now, he wants only to forget.

The customers at this establishment are wearing black coats. They don't stand apart from each other and they remind him of chess pieces (he hasn't played chess in ages), waiting to be moved because they themselves can't do it.

Sometimes Raito feels like a chess piece. Like he's lost control of life. He no longer knows what he wants and his head aches whenever he ponders over the alternatives, because none of them are great and noble like the dreams that he started out with. Some dreams are not meant to come true and he has learnt that the hardest way known to man, he thinks. He used to think that dreams and ambitions were what brought color to the world, the yellow of the sun, the blue of the sky and the ocean, and the green of the trees. Now all he sees are neutral shades, everywhere he looks. There is dark gray, light gray and a gray that isn't really gray but more brown, and of course, black, the classic shade of sadness and mystery, and he thinks, _There is so little color in the world._

"Hello, Raito-kun."

For a fleeting instant, he thinks that he is dreaming, or rather, he is remembering a dream where he is sitting in a computer lab before a giant LCD screen, chained to a human monkey. He follows the direction of the words almost reluctantly as though he is a sleeping child, loath to wake up on a weekday morning.

His eyes are deceiving him. They must be.

For L is sitting at the counter, thick, black unruly hair framing his face, knees pulled up in his trademark fashion, long, prehensile toes curling on the edge of the wooden seat (light, chestnut brown), looking very much like a monkey on the branch of a tree, about to jump and attack the unsuspecting human staring at him.

But Raito isn't staring at him. He's staring at the vibrant blue shade of his jeans, the first shade of color that has splashed his world, cooling his vision, in what feels like centuries.

The name is out of his mouth before he can stop himself. "Ryuuzaki," he breathes in amazement, unable to believe that he has once again happened upon the best detective in the world, and (former) arch-enemy.

"Long time no see," L nods a simple greeting at him. He has a coffee himself, completely comfortable in his position, conveniently ignoring the way other customers are staring at him for the way he's sitting. "You've been well, I hope?"

So deceptively formal he is, hiding his determined, vicious true self beneath an exterior of casual carelessness, acting as though he cannot even turn a fish on a frying pan, looking as ever like a druggie. More than on one occasion Raito has thought that L must be on some kind of drugs, which is why his eyes are always impossibly wide.

"I'm – okay," he answers, not knowing what to say; he is still staring at the thick blue serge that the other has on. When was the last time he went to the beach and stared at the clear blue waves with white froth crashing on the shore? When was the last time he raised his head (he has developed a habit of walking with his head down, in reminiscence of a certain hunchbacked private investigator) and looked up at the blue sky with funny-shaped white clouds?

(And L is wearing a white full-sleeved T-shirt – are those the only kinds of clothes he owns? – that hangs loose from his torso, making him look like a scarecrow wearing clothes are too large and unnatural for him.)

"Fancy meeting you here." Raito finally manages to tear away his gaze, like ripping a piece of paper, and look at Ryuuzaki's face.

The detective is wearing the same blank, annoying expression that Raito has seen ten thousand times before, but there's the softest twinkle of amusement in his dark eyes. "Likewise," he replies, and lifts his cup with his thumb and forefinger.

Raito is staring again. He is staring at this older man (he looks so much younger, like Raito's age) in white and blue – so pure and vibrant – as though he were an exotic creature in an African jungle.

(Are there jungles in whatever part of the world L is from?)

"Raito-kun seems to have a liking for this place," L makes a sudden observation like a bored professors. "He frequents here quite often."

The blue jeans are like a soldier's uniform, thick and warm, designed to protect its wearer, but its most fascinating is aspect is that its color is so _pretty_...

"Don't tell me that you're stalking me, Ryuuzaki," Raito half-jokes. He hasn't seen L since the accident, and here they are in a chance meeting, bickering like old friends.

_Raito-kun is my first friend._

Yeah, right.

"Don't flatter yourself," L takes a calm sip of his coffee, snubbing the younger man, once again the bored professor, this time dealing with an annoying student. "I have more important things that occupy my time."

This makes Raito smirk. More important things that occupy his time. "I thought you were no longer in Japan," he remarks.

"I wasn't for a while," L has finished his coffee, and is now looking directly at Raito with those soulless black eyes. "I went away for a while, solved the Carrera murder case and then had a sudden craving for Japanese coffee. So I came down right here."

"The owner must be very happy."

"I don't know. I don't talk to him much. He seems to be busy with his married life."

Raito's eyes go wide in surprise. "He's married?" This piece of news shouldn't shock him as much as it does since he has never laid eyes on said owner, never wondered about his personal life, either.

"Yes, and quite so. He has three wives all over Tokyo and none of them appears to be aware of one another's existence."

Raito stares at him. And then bursts into peals of laughter. It sounds strange to his own ears at first, like the laughter of sirens beckoning unsuspecting sailors to their doom. Or rather, it's more like the laughter of an innocent college boy, looking surprised and saying, _You think I'm Kira?_

L must've noticed something different, too, because he is tilting his head and eyeing the younger man with the wide-eyed curiosity of one who has never heard somebody laughing before. Come to think of it, Raito has only seen the raven-haired detective smile, not laugh, uncontrollably, shoulders shaking with mirth, eyes brimming with tears.

His own eyes brim with tears at the most inconvenient of times and that isn't because he's happy.

"It's nice to hear Raito-kun's laughter again," says L with a sort of laid-back charm – if that were the correct word.

"Yeah, well, there isn't much to laugh about these days," mutters Raito, and wishes that he hadn't said that. He hasn't seen L for a long time and remembering to be cautious and defensive around the guy doesn't come as naturally that one would think.

Or maybe he's just lost his touch and he thinks that there's nothing to hide anymore because L knows. L knows but doesn't bother to do anything about it.

Is it because he thinks that Raito's present state of mind is a more fitting punishment than being trapped behind bars will ever be? Perhaps so, for Raito often thinks that prison would've kept him from losing his mind.

"How come?" L is genuinely astonished.

_Don't act like you don't know._

"How is school going?" L easily changes the subject like sliding across the waves when Raito doesn't answer. One touchy subject to another. He wonders if he should tell the truth. He could tell a lie about how wonderful college is and he is taking as many courses as he can so that he can graduate early and join the police force. But L would know if he lied and he has probably been spying on him all the while, so he decides to come out with the truth, a child cornered with no way out.

"I'm not in college for the time being. I've – I've decided to take a break. Thought it might be a good idea."

"Ah."

Raito grits his teeth. He has said more than he ought to have, like a suspect deliberately giving too much information to the police to prove that he has an alibi for this time when that person was killed. He thinks of saying too much to Naomi Misora and he wonders if there could've have been an alternative to taking her life.

He decides, somewhat juvenilely, to put L in the interrogation room and ask him all sorts of questions about what he has been up to since the Kira case (what the sham that ended in, L feeling too sorry to do anything to the perpetrator just because his kid sister died).

"How's Watari doing?" Raito takes a long-awaited sip of his almost-forgotten coffee. It has become cold, the color drab and murky like a Louisiana swap (he's never been to the States but this is how he imagines that the southern swamps must look like – cold, muddy, slightly-stale coffee, too tired to even pretend to be delighted that its drinker has remembered it).

"Fine," says L briefly, and Raito doesn't expect him to go on because what business is it of a civilian to know of the assistant of the best detective in the world is faring? He shouldn't even be talking to this man, shouldn't be acting like they're old comrades from a battlefield where they fought side by side in the face of eminent danger.

(Did Sayu ever wonder what her big brother was up to during those three months? He instructed his father to tell them that he went to live with Misa.)

Raito leans back against the leather-clad seat. The moves makes and awkward noise, a loud screeching of fingernails across a blackboard but they both ignore it. "So what really brings you back to Japan, Ryuuzaki?" he asks, deciding to get straight to the point.

"I missed authentic shushi," L answers with a straight face.

Raito stares at him as though he has twigs growing out of his ears. "Sushi?" he echoes. "No professional reason? There's no case to solve?"

"I hardly think that it is appropriate for Raito-kun to be so curious about my whereabouts, considering that he has so few of his own these days," L returns politely. And then, to the younger man's surprise, he slides down his stool like a bird hopping off, and in one smooth motion, sits opposite to Raito.

Maybe Raito's too dazed to say anything because he just sits there and stares at this untidy man who was once sworn to catch him, but now does little to. _Guess not all promises are meant to be kept._

"I thought you hated real food." The corners of Raito's mouth twist upwards to form a smirk. "I thought you could come up with a better answer."

L stares at him with those beetle eyes, a predator carefully watching the movements of its prey before lunging and pouncing. "I don't really have an answer that you'd like to hear, Raito-kun. I'm here just because I want to be." For the first time this evening, he sounds honest. Actually, Raito thinks, this is the only time he has heard L being honest.

_So you aren't here to gloat at me._ "Fair enough, Ryuuzaki."

There is a silence, as heavy as deadweight in the middle of the ocean. They look at each other, and then away, and then back at each other as if they are participating in an odd staring contest until one of them decides to speak up.

"How long will you be here?" asks Raito, because he can't think of anything else to say.

"In the café?" L is being deliberately stupid.

Raito finds himself rolling his eyes. "In Japan, I mean."

"Ah...I'm not sure. A while, I'd say."

"I see."

More silence. Raito's coffee is finished by this time and he is staring into the white empty depths as opposed to L's pale, gaunt face. He can feel the detective's eyes on him, like he expects him to say something, but there's nothing that he has to say. And at the same time, there's so much that he has to say but he doesn't think that he wants to confide that in his old enemy, who could doubtlessly stab him in the back like Brutus stabbing Julius Caesar.

Finally, L shuffles awkwardly to his feet, eyes downward. Is he disappointed?

"I should go now," he says.

Raito stands, too. He feels relieved – but why?

"Yeah, me, too," he agrees and they look at each other again, just briefly, a tentative meeting of eyes.

"See you around," L nods as they step out of the café, and he starts walking in one direction, not even waiting for Raito's response.

And that's fine because Raito doesn't have much to respond with.

He turns on his heel and starts walking. Out on the streets, the traffic is thin as skimmed milk and he has no trouble crossing the zebra stripes on the asphalt. Most people are in their homes with nothing interesting to do. A flurry of girls saunter past him, chatting excitedly and they all turn their heads to give him a second look. He is used to being admired like an expensive showpiece in a Pierre Cartier store, window shoppers gathering around to gaze wide-eyed, disappointed at the sign that says _Look but don't touch_. He feels no need to return their attention; he never has. Let them have their fun tonight. Let them go to the most fashionable night club, dance with sailors until their feet are sore, down a glass of tequila and vodka and throw up on their expensive Bata shoes on the way out.

(Are those girls old enough to drink? It's not a crime to get a heart attack for.)

Still, they are like a miasma of rainbow colors, red, yellow, violet, blue (he stops counting at the last one since his brain hasn't been functioning too well as of late) but in his mind's eye, Raito is still envisioning the teal blue with tiny speck of white on L's jeans, that assuasive shade which appeases his gaze simply at being remembered.

Within minutes, he is back in his – in Misa's – little apartment where it is always dusky and the curtains drawn to protect the oak coffins of vampires (such a clever metaphor; perhaps he hasn't lost his intelligence after all). Right now, however, there are some lamps lit, their output dimmed by the pretty Chinese lampshades, and he knows that Teru is here.

He shuts the door as quietly as a mouse, taking care to make no noise. He can't say that it's his business what Misa does in her spare time in her own flat (he is merely her guest and he should feel lucky and thankful that she puts up with his stubborn fits of depression and anorexia) but he has to admit that it makes him slightly uncomfortable, like a traditional grandmother who is not yet accustomed to the more liberal morals of the modern age.

The world is moving and it does not care if he is left behind.

Raito is about to go to his own room when Misa and Teru come out into the hallway.

"Hey, Raito," she smiles cheerfully at him, "you're back."

"Yeah," he nods awkwardly like a child caught in the act of hearing his parents being intimate in their room.

"Hello, Raito," says Teru. He is tall, much taller than Raito, not to mention older, and he likes to wear black a lot. He has bigger muscles than Raito, who has never really been into body-building, and he doesn't doubt that Teru could kick his butt if he ever knew the way Raito used to treat Misa before _the accident_. Does he know? Raito wonders. Does he know that Misa loves him? Or perhaps she used to love him but she has now moved on and he is the only one who is clinging pathetically to the past as a child on his mother's skirt, afraid to _grow up_.

"Hey there, Teru," Raito responds with polite disinterest as they shake hands. He sees Teru and Misa together, Teru in his tailored, handsome black suit and Misa in her skimpy black dress and red-and-white socks and dark red lipstick, and two look like they have nothing in common except that they both like the color black. "How's it going?"

"Not too bad," Raito shrugs. There's a big chance that Teru might say something about school, something that he doesn't want to discuss. He no longer goes to college and the last thing he needs is to hear someone bragging about how great college life is and what he wants to do once he graduates.

But Teru, Raito knows, is far from being a braggart; he is dedicated to the cause of justice and he will not say anything to hurt the sentiment of someone who has problems of his own. Raito never thought he would see the day when he would become an object of pity for others.

He says that he was heading off to his room, hinting that the two lovebirds might want some privacy. Also, because he wants to have some time to himself, clear his mind, fill his lungs with the noir air that haunts this place.

"No problem," Teru shakes his head. "Actually, I was just about to leave."

"Oh." It comes out more like a question than a statement and while Raito attempts to feign surprise and insistence that the other man should say, Teru shakes his head again, says that he has a huge final and a job interview coming up, and leaves after giving Misa a peck on the cheek. This surprises Raito; he didn't think that a man as reserved as Teru Mikami would be capable of a public gesture of affection.

Misa is beaming like a light bulb when she shuts the door. She reminds him of a teenage girl dating for the first time, looking forward to future possibilities that she could have with her beau, so full of life and energy. It something that will never die in her – the energy to face another day even after everything she holds dear falls apart. That is courage. That is the will to survive, something he could do with.

"Guess who I ran into tonight," Raito finds himself saying, even though he previously had no intention of discussing the encounter at the coffee shop. It's like he's possessed by some subconscious desire to reveal his every move to ensure that he isn't under suspicion. Perhaps those months of being chained to L, under constant surveillance, have left a deeper impact than he cares to admit.

Misa turns to him with anticipation in her sapphire eyes. Pretty blue but not brilliant like L's jeans. "Who?" she wants to know.

He hesitates. Should he answer. "Ryuuzaki," he says at least, deciding that there could be no harm in this.

She blinks. "Ryuuzaki?" she echoes, astonished. "You sure?"

"I spoke to him. He was crouching on his seat and holding things weirdly. I'm pretty sure it was Ryuuzaki." Though, come to think of it, he _might_ have been hallucinating, might have imagined it all, because after all, how could a pair of jeans be so blue?

"That sounds like Ryuuzaki, all right," agrees Misa. She sits on the couch and he joins her, momentarily forgetting his plan to go and hang out in his room alone. "What did he say?"

"Nothing important. He was just there for coffee."

"Hmm. You could've invited him over for dinner."

It is Raito's turn to be surprised. "You serious?" he exclaims. It is a ridiculous suggestion to have that ape-like bastard here, picking interestedly only at the dessert and everyone acting like nothing ever happened among them, that he never held them in captivity and tortured them for information that they could not remember. In recollection, Raito thinks that he hates L more now.

She shrugs. "It'd be a great way to catch up on old times."

_What kind of pot is she smoking?_

It is hard to believe that this is the same Misa who used to be so jealous of Ryuuzaki as if Ryuuzaki were another contender for Raito's passion (he never was – Raito does not swing that way). How fiery she was when Ryuuzaki tagged along on their dates, how irritated when she discovered that they would be handcuffed 24/7 (_You're doing this with a guy? I didn't know you sat on that side of the fence, Ryuuzaki_), how utterly possessive she was of Raito, who was unable to spend enough time with her (that was one part he didn't feel sorry about). And here is Misa now, moving on with her life, dating a handsome, ambitious law student – God, it's almost like...it's almost like she never loved _him_.

"I beg to differ," Raito says drily. "I wasn't looking to meet him, you know."

"I'm not saying that you were, Raito," Misa tells him. She yawns and stretches. "Okay, I'm gonna call it a night. See you in the morning, okay?"

"Okay. Good night."

And when Raito is back in his own room, lying in his own bed, eyes shut, he is still thinking of L's blue jeans, a symbol of rejuvenation. And when he falls asleep, he dreams of clear blue skies with almost see-through cotton white cloud, and the crystal clear oceans, and tar pits.

A/N: The definition of the term "anomy" was adapted from . I first conceived the idea for this story nearly two years ago, for the Roy/Ed pairing in _Fullmetal Alchemist_. Recently, I thought it might be a good idea to adapt it for _Death Note_ also, but I have a plan to write an FMA version, too. As far as pairings go, I guess you could say that it's platonic Raito/L since I'm not into slash anymore. Some background on this story, as you've guessed, is that Raito's lost the will to go on because of Sayu's death. Although Ryuk and the DN are not actively present in this story, I've changed him and Rem to mere supernatural spirits, as opposed to shinigami, and they can see only names with their eyes (call it practice for a longer AU fic in the works).  
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this story and I'd be glad to have any typoes pointed out, seeing as how I proofread this myself ;). I hope you enjoyed this first installment :).


End file.
